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It was a Paul Simon kind of morning, a rhythmic kind of morning, and everything built around a peculiar beat. The Alabama sky was dazzling blue, and Sam put on clothes without a fight for the first time in a week. Caroline lost her belt, and she nearly forgot to wear shoes, but nobody shouted getting out the door, and the Darth Maul mask didn’t have to go into time out like it has so many mornings lately.

Sam read to me last night, each word precious and halting, a hard won battle of chosen sounds. I didn’t learn like this.… Read the rest

My kids’ Christmas party was yesterday. It’s the first time I’ve been to their school since the Sandy Hook tragedy. In the lobby, one mother asked if the front desk could have a panic button installed, just in case. The secretary, whose son also attends the school, agreed it would be a good idea. I’m not typically given to worry about the grand scheme. You want small scale frets? I have them in plenty. Conspiracy theories? I’m your woman. But the big stuff doesn’t usually bother me.

This does.

My kids were with me on Friday, December 14. It was my birthday, and the opening night of the Nutcracker, in which they both performed.… Read the rest

“Sam, get back in this house right now. We do not go outdoors naked.” I stagger-stuffed my legs into jeans as I pelted out onto the back patio. “Jesus Christ it’s cold.” I turned around and went back for something to put on my feet.

“Told you.” Scott was lacing up his own shoes.

We went back out together. Sam poked his penis through the tree house slats and shook it at us. “Wanker!”

“Oh God, I thought the ‘wanker’ phase was over.” I stalked to the base of the tree. “You’re going to get splinters if you keep that there.”

If you’re not familiar with Sam’s story, start with Sam Part I and Sam Part II. Then, if you’d like a happy little interlude, try out Beauty and the Beast. Although the story below will make sense without the background, the background will help. A lot.

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I just took some chocolate chip cookies to the neighbor’s house. Normally, I do that to express sympathy. I eat for comfort. Surely you do, as well. But today, I was saying, “Thank you.” We barely know these neighbors, a married couple with teen kids. In the three years we’ve lived here, we’ve exchanged maybe thirty words.… Read the rest

The super moon has turned Sam into a super monster. Seriously. He’s been on a rampage today. He isn’t normally all that talkative, but today? It’s been nonstop words. We took him to the zoo this morning, and I swear to God he woke up every snake in the reptile house bellowing “HERE I AM,” as he ran in the door.

When we got home, we tried to slow things down with a viewing of Wall-E. Scott and I enjoyed the movie. What little we saw of it between “hug attacks” and “What’s that?” bombardment. (NB: This is a kid who can follow Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen so I know he’s full of piss and vinegar when he claims to be unclear about a Pixar plot.… Read the rest

Sam had an epic meltdown last night and another one this morning. Two for one special down at Scream Mart or something I guess. I don’t know.

There’s an art to finessing these things so we don’t feed into them while still trying to force the little monster to gain some control. I don’t honestly remember what set him off either time, and once he’s in the heat of one, it doesn’t really matter.

If he were older, just a little older, I could comfortably put him in his room and, barring his own ability to confine himself to its four walls, lock the door and leave.… Read the rest

I swear to GOD my four year old can’t read. So I KNOW he didn’t see your blog entry about The Professor’s laundry today. Besides, he was in school. And he was still in school when my husband and I were talking to each other and saying it was exactly the kind of thing he might try, nevermind that your professor is five years his senior.

Nonetheless, we seem to have jinxed ourselves.

We put Sam to bed at 8, and he was back to annoy us at 8:15, 9:15, and 9:30. When things quieted down thereafter, we hoped it meant he’d finally gone to sleep.… Read the rest

Well folks, it worked. Or anyway, it sorta worked. There were kinks, and things got hinky there when Sam realized we were really taking his bed away, but our two little sugarplums are nestled right now in their big new beds.

Things got off to a rough start, because the shape of our house made it impossible to drag the beds in ahead of time, meaning we had to plan to deliver them as a middle-of-the-day-work-in-progress surprise. Only when we woke up, it was shiver in my bones pouring rain. Queue Ten Thousand Maniacs. Scott checked the radar, identified a brief hole when we could drag everything in from the shed, and as soon as the predicted letup began, we raced inside with a thousand parts.… Read the rest

The kids’ big gift this year is loft beds, but that requires some rearranging in their rooms. (My mother in law noticed that if we didn’t move Sam’s bed, he’d have full access to the ceiling fan from his current vantage point.) The overall purpose is to give Sam some more space in his rather small room, and I don’t see us getting out of that without doing the same for Sis. (Thank the pricing gods for Craig’s List, or we’d never be able to pull this off). The kids have both been begging for bunk and/or loft beds for over a year, and Scott and I have good reasons for caving in.… Read the rest